In his recent paper in The Energy Journal, Ronald Sutherland argues that several so-called market barriers'' to energy efficiency frequently cited in the literature are not market failures in the conventional sense and are thus irrelevant for energy policy. We argue that Sutherland has...

In his recent paper in The Energy Journal, Ronald Sutherland argues that several so-called ``market barriers`` to energy efficiency frequently cited in the literature are not market failures in the conventional sense and are thus irrelevant for energy policy. We argue that Sutherland has...

In the United States, energy consumption is increasing most rapidly in the commercial sector. Consequently, the commercial sector is becoming an increasingly important target for state and federal energy policies and also for utility-sponsored demand side management (DSM) programs. The rapid...

Many economists have strongly questioned engineering-economic studies aimed at demonstrating anomalously slow diffusion of energy-efficient technology and the benefits of regulations to promote such technology. One argument against such studies is that standard techniques of...

This paper uses survey data for 60,000 households from 29 transition economies in 2006 and 2010 to explore how the use of banking services is related to household characteristics, as well as to bank ownership, deposit insurance and creditor protection. At the household level we find that the...

We model the choice of loan currency in a framework which features a trade-off between lower cost of debt and the risk of firm-level distress costs. Under perfect information foreign currency funds come at a lower interest rate, all foreign currency earners as well as those local currency...

Motivated by current concerns over foreign currency exposures in emerging economies, we examine the currency denomination of business loans made in Bulgaria prior to the current crisis. We analyze information on the requested and granted currency for more than hundred thousand loans granted by...

We examine how relational contracting in credit and investment relationships is affected by the potential expropriation of funds. We implement credit relationships in which repayment is not third-party enforceable, i.e. borrowers can default on their loans. In our main treatment the borrower can...

Based on survey data from 193 banks in 20 countries we provide the first bank-level analysis of the determinants of foreign currency (FX) lending in Emerging Europe. We find that FX lending by all banks, regardless of their ownership structure, is strongly determined by the macroeconomic...

Abstract: We exploit variation in consumer price inflation across 71 Russian regions to examine the relationship between the perceived stability of the local currency and financial dollarization. Our results show that regions with higher inflation experience an increase in the dollarization of...